Characteristics of orris root iris: Orris root iris is a perennial herbaceous plant. The rhizome is thick and fleshy, flat-round, up to 2.5 cm in diameter, slanting, with ring patterns, yellow-brown or brown; the fibrous roots are thick, yellow-white. The leaves are gray-green, covered with a white powder, sword-shaped, 40-80 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, with a short acuminate tip, sheath-like at the base, and no obvious midrib.
The flower stem is smooth, green, covered with white powder, 50-100 cm tall, 1.3-1.5 cm in diameter, with 1-3 lateral branches in the upper part and 1-3 stem leaves in the middle and lower parts; 3 bracts, membranous, silvery white, ovate or broadly ovate, 3-3.5 cm long, 2.5-3 cm wide, containing 1-2 flowers; the flowers are large, blue-purple, light purple, or purplish red, up to 12 cm in diameter; the perianth tube is trumpet-shaped, about 2 cm long, the outer perianth segments are elliptical or obovate, 6-7.5 cm long, 4-4.5 cm wide, drooping at the tip, the claw narrowly wedge-shaped, the midrib densely covered with yellow beard-like appendages, the inner perianth segments round or obovate, about 5 cm long and wide, upright, arched inward at the tip, the midrib broad and raised outward, the claw narrowly wedge-shaped; stamens 2.5-2.8 cm long, anthers milky white; style branches petal-like, about 5 cm long, about 1.8 cm wide, the tip lobes broadly triangular or semicircular, serrate, the ovary spindle-shaped, about 3 cm long, about 5 mm in diameter.
The capsule is ovate-cylindrical, 4.5-4.7 cm long, 2.5-3.5 cm in diameter, blunt at the tip, without a beak, splitting from the top downward into three valves when mature; seeds pear-shaped, brown, without appendages. The flowering period is May, and the fruiting period is June-September.